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GURPS was long funny in that it offered skills for each and every specific application of magic (i.e., hundreds of spells), but no skill to cover a mage's overall understanding of magic itself.

Such a skill – name it Magic for simplicity – both fills that gap and lets you fine-tune magic in your campaign, in at least 10 fun ways. This old article was written for GURPS 3e and its Magic skill is at least partially duplicated by the Thaumatology skill that later appeared in GURPS Grimoire and then 4e Basic Set, but the notes may hold a new idea or two for your 4e games. Read more...

Intro: Keep it interesting!

RPGs evolve. New games don't just invent snazzy new mechanics; they poke deep into questions of what game-table play is about.

MERC stems from author Ben Finney's interest in the innovations of recent games, and ways to strengthen those concepts in the now-classic RPG GURPS. Broadly speaking, MERC is a set of guidelines for placing story first and making the most of gamers' time at the table. More narrowly, it homes in on a key question at the heart of all RPGs: When should the dice be used at all, and toward what end? 

From the GURPS perspective, that often equates to "When should we make success checks?" The general answer to that is clear to gamers with minimal experience: "Roll where the outcome is meaningful and interesting. Roll to have the PCs survive a dangerous car chase, not to eat breakfast without spilling the orange juice." We all know that, and MERC doesn't contradict this truism.

But that said, a beginning GM won't hurt for a more contemplative look at when to roll dice; even an experienced GM might freshen his games through a reexamination. More importantly, what MERC suggests actually may represent a new take on play for some gamers: A shift from many games' focus on resolving tasks, to a focus on resolving players' intent (with some crunchy GURPS-flavored dice-rolling guidelines to aid in that). Read more...

COSH is a fun, easy, GURPS-like way to build most any fighting skill, or modify existing fighting skills, in GURPS 3e. Any GM can drop COSH into a GURPS game and be designing unique new combat skills within minutes. Read more...

What's this about? A simple rules tweak that runs active defenses without the defender knowing the TH roll results in advance – a piece of information that, in many cases, the defending character could not reasonably know. It's a GURPS article, but could apply to any game system that runs defense rolls in the same way.

I've been a vocal (if not quite proselytizing) proponent of the proposal below; I'll daringly call it "the biggest pro-realism, pro-roleplaying bang you can get from a zero-bookkeeping, zero-extra-rolls, zero-effort rules tweak". Read more...

GLAIVE is an expansion for creating your own low-tech melee or ranged weapon for GURPS 3e, with detail like nothing ever built for the game. Arm yourself with GLAIVE! Read more...